our american invasion nigel no end of the cold war and the going away of the soviet union many people thought that nuclear weapons disappeared so a lot of the people who were the best to understand moment issues moved their activism to the environment they are fighting globalization or other issues and no one today is fighting in the streets for disarmament the nonproliferation. the danger is growing will the anti-nuclear movement wake up. america was not the only western power to consider the pacific islands far enough from home to use for practicing nuclear war in one nine hundred sixty s. french polynesia at all the more meaning the great secret became france's marshall

islands for thirty years this earthly paradise under nearly two hundred nuclear explosions but more roa also became ground zero of the anti-nuclear movement. cannot overcome the fact that our country collaborated in the development of the atomic bomb. general de gaulle's and that french polynesia is proud to be part of what france will become to me that is to say imagine you cleopatra were. but to me that is disgusting and symbolic that moment was imposed on us don't you not in fact she makes us guilty too yeah for we are victims but we are also responsible for what's happening to us and for what might happen if france were to use its nuclear weapons. well and i find that on forgivable and bad.

it really. was. behind this image of paradise life the secret that surrounds the testing and rips apart the people the french polynesia here the economy is dependent on friends and the subject of nuclear testing remains taboo but this doesn't stop maria. bristow mood right now. that i'm thinking of my children's future. not so much to protect the. tiny territory a tiny country will do for but we have a high percentage of people suffering from thyroid long and bladder cancer. and it's frightening to know all that. with the help of her husband that he should teacher and mother of two uses the internet to broadcast an image of her country one that is rather different from those in the

travel agency brochures. he decided to speak out about the nuclear issue because it's part of our contemporary history and it has disrupted our society since the sixty's. and now we suffer from the ills of our modern society yes we tell our son about our country's history but then when he asks us to but he's done facts we were just talking about nuclear testing with the lottery yes he was wondering why they did the tests here and not in france. or we explained that we are in the middle of a big ocean. and there are only two hundred thousand inhabitants. no could do so so fewer people are likely to be affected. yes. my father is a vice president of the independence party. and he has been involved in many

anti-nuclear demonstrations. what am i going to say to them when they ask what did you do to get my country into the situation it's on that's what i worry about. the atom bomb generation of them. paddle your boats down it's on have a good time don't worry about anything else we'll look after your country. france is keeping its nuclear arsenal because it needs the nuclear deterrent to discourage various threats to its vital interests. that is the doctrine that was established in the sixty's and it is still valid today. that there are leaders of the church and i've been one since one thousand nine hundred sixty three we have never agreed with nuclear testing. but we cannot agree to weapons of mass

destruction this week so must it's not possible. to find it's not just since the french tests we were against the american nuclear tests in the marshall islands wash out. long before france in one nine hundred forty six the united states and then great britain chose the pacific to conduct their testing but their tomic mushroom clouds were poisonous radioactive debris fell on to the surface of the earth and threatened the help of people all over the planet in one nine hundred fifty eight campaign for nuclear disarmament organized the first worldwide grassroots opposition in one thousand nine hundred sixty three under the pressure of the peace movements the two western powers and the u.s.s.r. signed an agreement bang. atmosphere testing france was concerned and continued to detonate bombs suspended from big. by nine hundred seventy four forty

six the atmosphere of french polynesia the word environment was still alien to the french however this was not the case for greenpeace but the campaign against the french was conceived during the first campaign against the united states because the united states was testing nuclear weapons but was testing them underground and france was still testing weapons in the atmosphere. in one nine hundred seventy one this small thank you for a base group decides to stop all nuclear testing in the pacific soon greenpeace departs for more they find an ally in new zealand where fall from the french testing has been detected on its soil. international justice and when. france is forced to renounce atmosphere testing but there is still another option the era of french underground testing begins it will last more than twenty years.

you don't actually need to do any tests once you've configured it reasonably well from a physicist point of view there is no chance that it explodes the problem is therefore to figure out exactly what conditions it's going to explode and with how much part which is a ridiculous justification since the purpose of a bomb is to kill people women and children so to achieve that goal you don't need to be a perfectionist. because i've known him since i was little but i never knew. if i told my superiors i want to be protected why are they protected by a. cocky police uniform shorts i can't be all that. and the military personnel are covered from head to toe. polynesians. it's not the same on we are tougher.

so we can take a dose of radiation i don't know maybe it's from eating. the blow i deplore is when some polynesians play of a card about the french and jacking billions here. they say take advantage of it and don't go around talking nonsense. and you've got to end your association. it's really a very young. two thousand and one wasn't. the president of the. old ham on the radio. he was appealing to young people is a region them to take a greater interest in the nuclear problem. so that's how we joined. the nucular tests here devastated polynesian society not just in terms of health the environment and other things. but the structures of the society were destroyed

. what doesn't name to stop the tests no jobs no money no economy will all starve that was the government's message. and if you were against the obama then your father or uncle worked at the site and they didn't want to protest against the bomb. that's a real rift in the family even between father and son but it's nice i became aware of when i was about twenty four. my father went sort of crazy. he said take your wife and daughter and get out i don't want to see you anymore. and i was a teenagers and all and i said to myself who are the real crazy ones that. are they the ones who are against nuclear testing so all the ones who support it.

because my classmates for example were saying oh yeah nuclear testing is so it's a bone that explodes that's it. only when you'd hear about an activist getting arrested by the police and thrown in jail. to get them i think that in her mind she wondered why is it always my father. gave me its true place when she was in jail it shocked me because i felt that it was too much of a sacrifice to save anything i wondered if it was really worth it to him to make the sacrifice when others would not yes i was a little angry about that. didn't

you know young various trips to new zealand with my parents i had the opportunity. to meet some members of greenpeace if you do you know you couldn't if i think that will bring me to cross the ocean to try and stop you clear tests. but it would have been so much better if our people had risen up together in protest on messages to move. greenpeace irritate the french military july tenth one thousand nine hundred five while the activists prepare to sail again tomorrow on france orders the sinking of their ship the rainbow warrior anchored in new zealand's auckland harbor. the bombing provokes an uproar from the international community and tremendous publicity for greenpeace. ten years later in one thousand and five the french president jacques chirac orders a new series of nuclear tests this time to heat up ballots.

remember actually our first demonstration was in one thousand nine hundred four and in one thousand nine hundred five both in the airport. and we saw the riot police shooting at protesters since it is so it was see if. that is so it was weird it was like watching a big movie screen but. if it if it's not consider what was very upsetting it was a feeling of hate. hate. the polynesian people rose up together and said you know mr chirac please stop. again just brushed it away and said something my decision is final. it one person one person decided the entire future of my children. my grandchildren and my

great grandchildren. it's in c. and. january one thousand nine hundred. seats with this last nuclear test and. what turns out to be the starting point long term research. tests justified an enormous investment to build new equipment new missiles new bombs the laser megajoules and you aircraft so everything is being updated to between now and twenty twenty. only interesting things that result from countries like the united states and some of the other western nations in developing new nuclear weapons that it excites the interest in countries like korea and iran who want to draw in the nuclear club. two thousand and six is a landmark year the united states the united kingdom france russia and china all we

invest in their nuclear arsenals the message is clear it is necessary to their security on the other hand the same countries keep telling non-nuclear nations that acquiring nuclear weapons is illegitimate leaders would be fooling themselves if they think that this type of system can continue we are still living in a system that emanates from the end of the second world war five countries in the security council have special powers and it's even more problematic that these five countries are also the five countries with nuclear weapons so in a sense it gives the impression that having nuclear weapons gives them this special status i was going to one law one standard we're going to have to class world increasingly countries particularly developing world are saying that they're not going to live in a two class world. force where french we are in our passports also

french but second class citizens second rate is do you remember what i said the other day. if we had been telling me sheehan would never have had nuclear tests. well that's what i was called back than. if i think that when we have our independence. the whole truth about the tests and their consequences will come out. to our people are taken for ignorant and that has to stop polluting we are not ignorant. today we want the truth and we're going to get it frank always maintained that their bombs were clean that they were exploding clean atomic bombs but in two thousand and six they conceded to some follow up throughout french polynesia. i see the camp recording test and the center test which were carried out the year i

was boring. and i know that i've had a problem for two years now. and i wonder if it's connected to the nuclear tests. this is the interest. this shows that one hundred and ninety six radioactive follow it's were detected in french polynesia. but we don't know the dose. and they're not telling us but they know. in france it takes time for things to be made public particularly with respect to nuclear testing it's top secret it's a defense secret so there's no information at all. exists in french polynesia either as the collective anxiety brought aboard by cycle sociological poisoning or in terms of the code of silence that has prevailed over the radioactive fallout. here if there is

a psychosis it's because the government created it we want to know the radiation dose of those fall outs they tell us there were one hundred ninety six of them with no health consequences the truth has to be told that after years and years of the status fear of secrecy let's call it by its rightful name come on the. people who live there are worried and rightly so because i think they deserve the truth immediately but campaigning for transparency doesn't necessarily make you a doomsayer. in general we have a higher rate of firewood cancer as you compared to some regions it's much higher. if we have a higher incidence of leukemia than elsewhere it's probably due to the bomb but

that means to be proved we have to hurry and tick. samples from people who are still alive. the easiest way to find the people who worked on more is to tour the halls outside the oncology department in the hospital after p.t. . he worked in. a repair facility for navy ships returning from the states. and now i have lung cancer he has cancer in his left lung. you know he worked for a very short time only six months and the second time they brought him home because he was having trouble breathing. you know they had three brothers who worked in all three died of this yes. yes yes they died. so this is his wife she has it's my time. and it's starting to get bigger look and later

it will be here. but i'm not saying it's because of no i can't we don't have scientific proof but we have lots and lots of questions about it that's all i don't want to say that we should be criticizing. also in addition to the serious nature of their illness if you say anything they insult you they tell you all you want is to benefit from french money. i'd prefer my husband to mind. his illness has gotten worse and i'm going to lose him so it hurts i don't care about money. yes that's the way. the four years they have been checking me. they couldn't figure out that i had a kidney tumor. i am waiting for

someone to say clearly your illness was caused by eating too much pork too much of this or that. because of the nuclear testing. what have we done it has to stop and so we give you a lot of nonsense and then just say. don't worry you can eat fish you can grow food and there's no problem. well yes there is a small problem but it's not serious it's clean. all the plutonium is used a lot of it is just left behind so that's what we're talking. most of that so long as it remains under grow. is not a problem when it gets into the water and when it gets to plants then it could be a problem. what is the legacy of one

hundred fifty to undergo nuclear tests six seven hundred kilos of plutonium underneath more rula what does that mean. one tenth of a millionth of a gram of plutonium can cause cancer. so it's radioactive half life is twenty four thousand four hundred years. that means it will take more than two hundred forty thousand years before it can be considered harmless. this assumption that plutonium will not go anywhere which is held by testing authorities i think in more than one country turns out to be not quite right. recent research done by the u.s. government in about it indicates that in one. has migrated quite far already within forty years. one of the additional

problems that had been discovered in the last fifty years turned out to be a very complicated substance chemical. very difficult to characterize it maybe migrate faster into the water. than before. we have to worry about that. you know we have seven hundred kilos down there. nobody knows if it's stabilised. is beginning to cave in that's the legacy we're left with and they want us to close the book. no no never. said to seven hundred kilos. berries are now soiled. and i ask myself is because

i wonder what it's worth having children will see poor when they are faced with a tragedy. and it that could indeed happen. to them. is to feel it goes on and all it would take would be a tsunami to light up. when i heard talking about the legacy on judical did. i saw my daughter. again and kissing me. and i thought if i don't do anything and shoot at me one day she'll blame me that's what motivates me to find the nuclear threat through none struggle for my country sin dependence. culture is that so much of it and there's a huge music machine on the mark with libya still in the sand made those bombing

campaigns and aided and taken off the pace of only hard political facts something.

in india. the movie. the gateway hotel the ground in period truly told us to. close the.

road as the colonel was hoto retreat. cable has forced rescuers to restart the complicated operation to lift the massive bulgaria cruiser that sank a week ago claiming one hundred twenty nine lives. the murdoch media phone hacking scandal claims another. britain's top cop quits over police connections to journalists suspected of criminal behavior former news international chief executive and news of the world editor rebecca brooks was arrested earlier today in london. and a libyan rebels have been recognized as the legitimate governing authority in the country by the u.s. and thirty other countries but colonel gadhafi remains defiant never to leave libya as a nato air strikes continue. and

a. cash crunch as america struggles to raise its debt ceiling in time to avert a default while the euro crisis spreads having more pressure on the single currency . two o'clock on a monday morning here in moscow this is r t i'm sean thomas glad to have you with us russian emergency crews are to restart efforts to lift of the wreck of a sunken cruiser which went down in the river volga last week killing one hundred twenty nine people including me. children ok will snaps during recovery efforts which have had to restart the cruise or bulgaria went down in minutes and leaving most of the two hundred passengers no chance of escape in one of russia's worst ever shipping disastrous artie's tom burton reports from the side of the

catastrophe as if to demonstrate just how difficult recovering the ball gary is going to be the cable holding it just snapped with a nor mighty buying but crane holding it rocked backwards and the cable whips up against the side of the ship that cable was there to try and support the ship to try and write it before they began lifting the ship with other straps that were later to be put under it it serves to demonstrate just how difficult and dangerous this operation is going to be if there were divers under there they could have been in great danger from the snapping cable they'd previously been trying to turn the ship around to get into position in order that they could right the ship and then bring it up to the surface but there's a lot of other complications involved very poor visibility a lot of weight involved and a long a long and lengthy process is going to be needed we were told just recently by a spokesman from the emergencies ministry it's going to take many days before they can begin to even start raising the ship that's going to.